particular,
semi-conscious, semi-unconscious state which we must now study.

At first sight, and considered in its negative aspect, inspiration
presents a very definite character. It does not depend on the individual
will. As in the case of sleep or digestion, we may try to call it forth,
encourage it, maintain it; but not always with success. Inventors, great
and small, never cease to complain over the periods of unproductiveness
which they undergo in spite of themselves. The wiser among them watch
for the moment; the others attempt to fight against their evil fate and
to create despite nature.

Considered in its positive aspect, inspiration has two essential
marks--suddenness and impersonality.

(a) It makes a sudden eruption into consciousness, but one presupposing
a latent, frequently long, labor. It has its analogues among other
well-known psychic states; for example, a passion that is forgotten,
which, after a long period of incubation, reveals itself through an act;
or, better, a sudden resolve after endless deliberation which did not
seem able to come to a head. Again, there may be absence of effort and
of appearance of preparation. Beethoven would strike haphazard the keys
of a piano or would listen to the songs of birds. "With Chopin," says
George Sand, "creation was spontaneous, miraculous; he wrought without
foreseeing. It would come complete, sudden, sublime." One might pile up
like facts in abundance. Sometimes, indeed, inspiration bursts forth in
deep sleep and awakens the sleeper, and lest we may suppose this
suddenness to be especially characteristic of artists we see it in all
forms of invention. "You feel a little electric shock striking you in
the head, seizing your heart at the same time--that is the moment of
genius" (Buffon). "In the course of my life I have had some happy
thoughts," says Du Bois Reymond, "and I have often noted that they would
come to me involuntarily, and when I was not thinking of the subject."
Claude Bernard has voiced the same thought more than once.

(b) Impersonality is a deeper character than the preceding. It reveals a
power superior to the conscious individual, strange to him although
acting through him: a state which many inventors have expressed in the
words, "I counted for nothing in that." The best means of recognizing it
would be to write down some observations taken from the inspired
individuals themselves. We do not lack them, and some have the virtue of
good